That might be a bit of a struggle. The Kyoto Protocol was not put to Congress by Clinton ( probably because he knew it woudln’t be carried) and the Senate voted 95-0 for a bill disallowing any climate treaty which places an economic constraint on the US.

Who knows what the next US Administration will do? Even if the next President is a Democrat, that person will have great difficulty carrying Congress on a bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions based on projections based on the IPCC TAR or 4AR.

The GB and NZ governments have simply run into political and economic reality. They know that to sign up to the Kyoto or son-of-Kyoto agreements and stick to them, they would collapse their economies, with companies of all kinds running to non-Kyoto countries in order to remain competitive or even viable.

A struggle indeed, but I think a more optimistic view is supported by looking at what U.S. states and localities are doing, led in part by the Republican governors of the two most populous states. Also note the GW position of John McCain, the leading Rep presidential contender. With regard to the economics, it has been noted often (at length by Roger Pielke, Jr., e.g.) that numerous “no regrets” steps that can be entirely justified for other reasons (e.g., national security, reducing air pollution, planning for the end of oil) but will also be very helpful for GW seem to be difficult to take. For example, a vast ramp-up in the use of CF bulbs makes sense right now in terms of saving money, and yet it’s hard to implement (for reasons that require a lot more time to discuss than I have at the moment, but have nothing to do with it being a drain on the economy since it would actually boost the economy).

The reason that NZ dumped the carbon tax has nothing to do with the policies of the US, GB or anyone else. It was entirely due to the miscalculation by nearly $NZ1B of the carbon tax liablity, from a credit to a $NZ500M debit.

Memo to Steve Bloom – stop lying about what the US are and are not doing. As you well know, the structure of political control in the US resides mostly at the state level not the federal level. Take for example the state with the greatest singular impact in terms of CO2 output, California. Sadly, our Green governor, who is a mouthpiece for the Kennedy clan, wearing a “moderate conservative” disguise, has embraced not only the ill advised, windmill tilting (pardon *that* pun) notion of “the hydrogen economy” but has also embraced – drum roll please – a carbon tax. And knowing the average attention and IQ levels of the California electorate / tax payers, I predict that it will go into force, virtually unopposed. Use us as a case study – for what *not* to do! That said, from a purely scientific / economic perspective, this will serve as a useful experiment for the rest of the world to observe.